This morning, the House budget proposal had a simple, boiler plate name.
Before the day is over, the House is expected to change the name of the bill to an unwieldy, exhaustive list of all the taxes the proposal would raise. House rules say amendments must be germaine to the bill.
The rule exists to ensure that bills don't include random provisions unrelated to the subject matter of the bill.
The rule requires that if an amendment would run counter to the bill title, it would need a 2/3 vote to suspend the rules to be considered. The new name hasn't been added yet, so House members could still run amendments through.
Rep. Paul Luebke, a Durham Democrat, said that the tax package received 150 comments from the 30 members of the Finance Committee.
"It was an excellent debate, but that entire debate does not need to be repeated on the House floor," Luebke said.
"It's anti-democratic," said Rep. Paul Stam, an Apex Repubilcan and the House minority leader.
Comments
Re: Taxes and title
June 11, 2009 - 4:29pm — PaulTerrellThe Democrats are simply playing political games with the future of all of us here in North carolina and our futures. Shame on you Rep. Luebke.
Re: Taxes and title
June 11, 2009 - 1:35pm — cdtewAw, shucks, it probably took the Democrats' law clerks a few days poring over statute books and Roberts' Rules of Order to figure this strategy out. Give them credit - when a North Carolina Democrat inevitably fails to win on policy or persuasion grounds, they can certainly find a technical rule to win on!
I bet all of Paul Luebke's childhood friends hated playing board games with him for the same reasons.